For almost 4 weeks now I have not been drinking. It has had a most unexpected side effect for me, for much of this time has been spent around people who are drinking. In fact, for the first 8 days in a row I was at bars and/or restaurants where people were consuming reasonably large amounts lot of alcohol.

It wouldn’t say I had a moment of clarity, but I would say I became much more aware of these people's behavior. I for one don’t believe that alcohol brings out the "true" person for the true person is the sum total of a person’s entire life not just pieces of it we may allow to be exposed while under some form of external influence (frankly of anything - substance, pressure, and etc...). However, it does become easier to see others insecurities, ones own behavior in others (which is disturbing to say the least), the wounds of peoples hearts, the fears they hold and occasionally courage they exhibit.

There are many forms of courage; and, later I will write more practically and philosophically about courage, but for now I want to focus on a specific attribute of courage. The piece that makes people get up again and carry on with life. To that end I do not mean merely moving on in life as if the current of life is moving them, but the active re-engagement of the will over the direction their life will take.

For some people this will appear almost meaningless. There is a clear separation from those who have never been close to the pain of tragedy and those who have lived through such pain. Those of us who have stories we unwillingly carry with us, through little to no choice of our own, which we choose not to share even with those close to us.

So while it may be then an even smaller set of people to whom this courage applies, it is I suspect reasonably common that almost all people find the prospect of changing the pathway of their life as overwhelming as death – I say death only in the context of a complete inability to see through to the other side of a matter.

And so while all of us are at some point unknowingly faced with the question, rarely do people ask themselves – “What manner of courage do I ask for, to know that I am willingly about to suffer wounds from which I will not recover?”

For on this side of such a question there is no possible way of seeing the other side, even though one does in fact recover. The type of question a girl may ask herself when her boyfriend leaves her, the type of question a young person may ask themselves when abandoned (even emotionally) by a parent, the type of question asked by many when love is lost. While these examples may describe well the position of needing courage because of an awareness of being about to suffer wounds from which there is the current appearance that one will not recover they do not adequately cover the “willingly” piece of that statement.

The adding of willing should set off in our minds red flags of a martyr, or false self sacrifice, but neither of these fits the description of courage but rather something closer to pride or fear.  No, this form of courage is that one in which one wills against the easier flow of life knowingly, not knowing the end, or where the end seems already lost. Maybe the better examples here are the wounded heart having the courage to feel again. Maybe its letting go of something or someone? Maybe it’s being brave enough to admit fault or wrong doing. Maybe it’s the courage to dramatically change the pathway of life that a person is currently on. And with these cases doing so with the specific knowledge of the tragedy that was lived through before, and willingly but not foolishly being willing to have the potential, or maybe the likelihood of recieving those wounds again that from this side of the choice there is no apparent hope of being able to recover.

In this instance, I think the answer is best described by painting a picture with words and therefore I say:

There are moments in life when all that was clear is gone

Vanishing like a mountain or a watch tower in the mist

When all that we know is real becomes a myth

Made all the more doubtful by voices around us

Who cry out at the shadows, as if they were real

How quickly they lose their way, their faith

The voice of a deceiver pointing the way to vanity

Enticing with riches and love unearned

Even the strongest have flickers of doubt

Questions arise in our minds, is this now what is real?

When our strength is failing, our friends falling

When we lose what should have been won

It is easy to be strong when hope is high in our hearts

It is easy to believe in justice with the sweet taste of victory

But in the bitter taste of loss or defeat, in the dark valley of death

In the intense loneliness of failure, what then do you believe?

Only one thing is more painful

To turn and see those you love in that same fog of war

To be too far away to reach out and to hold them

Too far away to slay what troubles them

One weak giving up on goodness as a lost cause

Listening to voices filled with worldly wisdom devoid of justice

Another strong but lost in the pain of confusion

Wounds inflicted by those that should protect

It is a quiet voice that whispers to me right now

And a glimpse of the thought behind your eyes

It is courage to keep on, on a path uncertain

To replace selfless honor with a just accountability of our talent

To leave the voice that cries out to us

Have you left your honor? You are not who you say you are!

As we walk on for one moment we pause and close our eyes

Though no one sees we tighten in our chests

If only they knew that our leaving them

Was not for selfish gratification but to do right

That which they threw at us to destroy us, in their own ignorance

Made us strong that we could in turn save them

The righteous scorn and point to our weakness

The rest to our apparent pride and stupidity

But greatness is found in such ways

True hero’s never chose such a path knowing the end

They only know that to deny the call of destiny

Is to assure the destruction of our own talent

And that price a debt we can never repay

That death too terrible to contemplate

It is fear of justice and love of love

That carries us to our personal destiny